Qt Developer Days: Previews of Qt 4.5 and 4.6

In his keynote at the Qt Developer Days 2008, Matthias Ettrich covered the upcoming versions 4.5 and 4.6 of Qt due to release the beginning and end of 2009, respectively.

The head of R&D at Qt Software heralded the enhanced QtWebKit of the upcoming version 4.5 expected beginning of 2009. The browser engine will support Netscape plugins as well as elements of HTML 5 such as audio and video using KDE's Phonom multimedia layer. It will also work with the new Squirrelfish JavaScript interpreter. At the Akademy 2008 free software desktop summit in Belgium in August, Qt developers had already presented a number of enhancements to the WebKit. Other important changes to Qt 4.5 involve its color framework, based on OpenGL 2.0. A new benchmark tool will be available as a macro.

As to Qt 4.6, Ettrich highlighted its animation features and promised improvements to the user interface. The Qt libraries will also be extended and work is underway for USB and Bluetooth ports. He expects Qt 4.6 to release by end of 2009.

45 Qt developers are currently working in Oslo and 15 in Berlin, says Ettrich. Nokia is looking for additional Qt programmers.

KDE founder Ettrich is head of Germany's R&D operations at Nokia's Qt Software, formerly Trolltech. The Qt Developer Days 2008 is the fifth annual conference that took place October 14 and 15 in Munich